From The American Civil Liberties Union:
Ideas are powerful. That’s why intellectual freedom is protected by the First Amendments — and it’s also why sometimes governments try to suppress them.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has fought to make sure Americans have the right to read what they want. Despite our many victories, there are still misguided attempt to ban books. The American Library Association keeps track — some of the most frequently challenged books from 2015 include the best seller Fifty Shades of Grey along with Fun Home and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (both of which were turned into Tony Award-winning Broadway shows, by the way).
But you can’t keep a good book down. See the menu below for more on those “dangerous” collections of words.
Link to the rest at The American Civil Liberties Union
PG acknowledges that there are meaningful distinctions between a government agency attempting to prevent people from reading books about certain subjects and a private publisher acting in the same way.
However, he suggests the human impulse of someone with a bit of power to ban the dissemination of ideas that don’t fit in with their opinions or prejudices is at the root of both actions.